A mildly amusing outing for an odd though engaging canine character.
An extremely long “sausage dog” causes problems with his far-distant rear end until his friends provide a creative solution.
The dog, Bartelby, is presumably a wire-haired dachshund, although his ultra-long size puts him in the category of imaginary pets. He lives (seemingly independently) in a well-stocked bookstore, where he enjoys reading his favorite books “whilst eating breakfast” and having visits with three children who are his special friends. One is white with blonde braids, another is white with curly, red hair and glasses, and the third friend has brown skin and straight, dark hair. Bartelby is so long that he doesn’t know what his own rear end is doing when he goes out on walks, causing issues such as tripping people or tracking his back feet through wet cement. His friends read books at the bookstore to discover a way to help him, coming up with a bright yellow sweater for Bartelby’s back end with a light and warning sign. Soft-focus, colored-pencil illustrations have a whimsical appeal, with amusing expressions for Bartelby and a multiethnic cast of characters. The dog’s enormous length makes some of the illustrations hard to understand, and it’s difficult to grasp how Bartelby could walk with his extra-long body, powered only by four tiny feet.
A mildly amusing outing for an odd though engaging canine character. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5445-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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